Britain and France demand a German withdrawal from Poland

At 9.30 p.m. on 1 September 1939 the British ambassador in Berlin, Nevile Henderson, was received by the Reich Foreign Minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, and handed him a note from his government. Immediately afterwards the French ambassador, Robert Coulondre, called at the same office on the Wilhelmstraße with a French note of identical content. Both governments declared that Germany had committed an act of aggression against Poland which called for the fulfilment of the obligations they had undertaken towards her. Unless the Reich government gave satisfactory assurances that it had suspended all aggressive action against Poland and was prepared promptly to withdraw its forces from Polish territory, Britain and France would fulfil their obligations to their ally “without hesitation”.

The ambassadors demanded that Germany halt hostilities and withdraw its troops from Poland. It is worth noting, however, what these notes were not. They set no deadline for a reply and contained no explicit threat of war. In his instructions to Henderson, Halifax told him to explain, if asked, that this was a warning and not an ultimatum. An ultimatum with a deadline came only on 3 September, after two days that felt agonisingly long in Warsaw.

The morning of 1 September

News of the German attack reached London and Paris early in the morning. By 10.30 a.m. the Polish ambassador in London, Edward Raczyński, was already with the Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax. He told him that German troops had crossed the frontier at four points, that Wilno, Grodno, Brest, Łódź, Katowice and Kraków were being bombed, and that at 9 a.m. German aircraft had attacked Warsaw, killing many civilians, among them women and children. He said he had little to add: this was a “clear case” as provided for in the alliance treaty of 25 August. Halifax replied that if the facts were as he had stated them, the British government would regard them in the same light.

At 10.50 a.m. Halifax received the German chargé d’affaires, Theodor Kordt, in Downing Street. Kordt had no information at all and had come to the meeting straight from the wireless, on which he had been listening to the opening of Hitler’s speech to the Reichstag. Halifax told him only that the situation was very grave and that any statement the government might make would be passed on to Berlin. Before noon the British Cabinet met. General mobilisation of the armed forces was proclaimed, and the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, began to form a War Cabinet. It was decided to send Germany a warning but not to declare war at once. The Council of Ministers in Paris took similar decisions: it proclaimed general mobilisation and a state of siege, and summoned parliament.

In Warsaw the Foreign Minister, Józef Beck, telephoned the British ambassador, Howard Kennard, during an air raid and asked that Halifax be made to understand that these were no longer isolated incidents but acts of war. He recalled that as late as the evening of 31 August Ambassador Józef Lipski had assured Ribbentrop that Poland was ready for direct negotiations, yet at dawn Germany had attacked Polish territory without a declaration of war. He categorically denied that any Polish aggression had taken place during the night, as the German news agency claimed. Poland had broken off diplomatic relations with the Reich, and Lipski had asked for his passports. Beck did not say so outright, but Kennard was in no doubt: the Poles were counting on some action by the Royal Air Force that very day.

A note without a deadline

At 4.45 p.m. Halifax sent Henderson a telegram of instructions, followed an hour later by the text of the note. The ambassador was to deliver it together with his French colleague and demand an immediate reply. The instructions contained two sentences intended for Henderson alone: if asked, he was to say that the note was a warning and not an ultimatum, and that if the German reply proved unsatisfactory, the next step would be either an ultimatum with a time limit or an immediate declaration of war.

The cause of the delay was France. The French high command wanted to gain as much time as possible for the first days of mobilisation and for evacuating the cities before the expected bombs fell on the country. The Foreign Minister, Georges Bonnet, was still pinning his hopes on the proposal of Benito Mussolini, who on 31 August had suggested convening a conference of the powers on 5 September to review the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles. The British government did not want to act alone and give Hitler a chance to split the alliance, so it accepted the pace set by Paris.

At 6.05 p.m. Chamberlain spoke in the House of Commons. He read out the text of the note and declared that responsibility for the catastrophe lay on the shoulders of one man, the German Chancellor, who had not hesitated to plunge the world into misery in order to serve his own “senseless ambitions”. He pointed out that the German proposals Berlin kept invoking had never been communicated to Poland. Arthur Greenwood replied on behalf of the Labour opposition. He promised that the Labour Party would keep its word, but observed that the note left Germany “another loophole”, a way of backing out, even though the nation was already bound in honour. He reminded the House of the wording of Article 1 of the treaty with Poland, which “has only one meaning”.

In Ribbentrop’s office

That evening Ribbentrop received Henderson courteously. He read the note and declared that it was not Germany that had attacked Poland; rather, Poland had long been provoking Germany, had been the first to mobilise, and the previous day its regular troops had invaded Reich territory. When Henderson asked for an immediate reply, the minister answered that he had to lay the matter before the head of state. He added reproachfully that had the British put as much pressure on Poland as they had on Germany, agreement would have been reached long ago. A few minutes later, at about 10 p.m., Coulondre received an identical answer.

As they parted, Ribbentrop spent a long time explaining to Henderson why, during the night of 30–31 August, he had not given him the text of the German proposals. The ambassador replied that this attitude had effectively frustrated his last attempt to save the peace. In his dispatch to London he judged that Hitler’s reply would be an attempt to avoid war with Britain and France, but was unlikely to be acceptable. No reply ever came.

2 September: Italian mediation

At 10 a.m. on 2 September the Italian ambassador in Berlin, Bernardo Attolico, informed Hitler, “for information”, that there was still a possibility of convening a conference, preceded by an armistice, which would settle the German-Polish conflict peacefully. Hitler did not reject it out of hand. He wanted to know, however, whether the notes of the previous evening had the character of an ultimatum, in which case talks would be pointless, and whether he could have twenty-four hours to think it over. At 2 p.m. the Italian Foreign Minister, Galeazzo Ciano, passed these questions on to London and Paris.

Paris was ready to talk. London also confirmed that the notes were not an ultimatum, but it laid down a condition Germany could not accept: a conference was possible only if German troops left the Polish territory they had occupied. In the evening France associated itself with this condition. The Italian government concluded that in these circumstances there was nothing more it could do: it conveyed the Anglo-French condition to Hitler and ended its mediation.

The Polish government wanted help, not a conference. On 2 September Beck summoned Kennard and the French ambassador, Léon Noël, and argued that the Luftwaffe could throw its entire strength against Poland, and that its aircraft were bombing not only military targets but also factories, villages and the civilian population. He asked to be told as soon as possible that the two states had entered the war, and for a diversion in the west. In Paris Ambassador Juliusz Łukasiewicz, in a stormy interview, demanded that Bonnet explain why France had still not declared war.

“Speak for England”

On the evening of 2 September the House of Commons awaited a statement from the Prime Minister. When Chamberlain rose at 7.44 p.m., he spoke of the lack of any reply to the note, of the Italian proposal, which Britain would not accept while Poland was being invaded and her towns bombed, and of discussions with the French about a time limit. He also said that if Germany withdrew its forces, the position could be regarded as the same as before the Polish frontier was crossed. He gave no deadline.

The House received this with disbelief. When Greenwood rose, a cry of “Speak for England, Arthur!” came from the Conservative benches; it is usually attributed to Leo Amery. It does not appear in the Hansard record. Amery described it in his memoirs, and similar shouts have also been attributed to Robert Boothby. Greenwood said that the act of aggression had taken place thirty-eight hours earlier, and that from that moment one of the most important treaties of modern times should automatically have come into operation. He asked how much longer Britain would hesitate when she herself and civilisation were in danger, and warned that every minute’s delay meant the loss of life. As Greenwood said that delay imperilled the national interest, Boothby called out the word “honour” from the floor. The Liberal leader, Archibald Sinclair, added that deliberating over the Italian proposal had not slowed the march of the German army. Chamberlain explained that allies communicating by telephone could hardly act as quickly as men sitting in the same room, and promised a definite answer the next day.

That same night the Cabinet, under pressure from rebellious ministers, decided to wait no longer for France.

Significance

The notes of 1 September were the last act of the diplomacy which, ever since Munich, had tried to restrain Hitler with threats while leaving him a way out. Their mild tone, the absence of a deadline and the two days’ delay, born of French anxieties over mobilisation and of Bonnet’s hopes of mediation by Mussolini, changed nothing at the front. Hitler had no intention of withdrawing, and over those two days the Wehrmacht was cutting across Pomerania and breaking the Polish defences in Silesia. The delay did, however, strain Polish trust in the allies and gave rise to questions that returned with full force in the weeks that followed.

At 9 a.m. on 3 September Henderson delivered in Berlin an ultimatum expiring at 11 a.m., and France issued its own with a deadline of 5 p.m. Both expired without a reply, and the two powers found themselves at war with Germany. The German-Polish war had become a European war. The condition set on 1 September, the withdrawal of German troops from Poland, remained the basis of the position of London and Paris even when, in October 1939, Hitler came forward with a “peace offer”, counting on the West to accept the accomplished facts after Poland’s defeat. Both capitals rejected it, yet gave Poland no real help. In the west the Phoney War went on.